Jocko Podcast - Jocko Podcast 23: The Art of War “Sun Tzu”, Dealing w/ Betrayal, Sport VS Self-defense BJJ, Campaign for Change

Episode Date: May 18, 2016

https://youtu.be/IZ3N7DoVvy4 0:00:00 - Opening 0:02:52 - "The Art of War", by Sun Tzu 1:11:39 - Internet/Onnit Stuff 1:13:06 - Over-thinkers' Anxiety, low confidence, I.Q. and perfectionism 1:15:30 - "Conclusions" on the Most Effective Martial Art? 1:27:06 - Is it better to reveal too much info, or too less? 1:37:46 - Dealing with Betrayal of Trust 1:46:08 - Dealing with Regret for NOT joining the military and/or Law Enforcement/Public Svc. 1:51:20 - Sport Jiu Jitsu VS Self-Defense Jiu Jitsu? 2:06:17 - What is the "One Change" to start improving ones self?  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 23 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Better. And faster and stronger and smarter and smarter and wiser. Always trying to get a little bit of all those things. And we try and get wiser. That's one of those things.

That's wisdom. which technically wisdom comes from experience. So how do you garner experience? You can't just make yourself live longer in a shorter period of time. No, it doesn't work that way. So what do we do to garner wisdom? We look to the past. You got to know your past.

You've got to know history. And as I tell my son On a pretty regular basis History revolves around war And in many ways History is war And war Is a human endeavor

The worst of human endeavors But it is a human endeavor nonetheless And because it is a human endeavor, It therefore reflects human nature. And that's why we can learn so much from the history of war, not just about war itself, but about man and about human nature. And the same goes for principles of war. The principles of war can be applied to life, can be applied to business, can be applied to relationships, can be applied to every human endeavor. And so with that in mind, that full spectrum of application, let's take a look at the oldest book about the principles of war, written in 500 BC over 2,500 years ago, a book whose principles still apply today.

Sun Su's The Art of War Sun Su said The Art of War is of vital importance to the state It is a matter of life and death A road either to safety or to ruin Hence it is a subject of inquiry

Which can on no account Be neglected You gotta study war And like I said, it is really about life and conflict and friction and relationships and human interaction. You're going to see all that when you start looking at the art of war. And here he starts talking about trying to figure out who's going to win in a situation. When seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison. in this wise.

Which of the two generals has most ability? On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced? Which army is stronger? On which side are officers and men most highly trained? In which army is there the greater constancy in both reward and punishment? That's something you talked about. echo charles and we're talking about kids you talked about how it's important for the punishment to be constant and consistent now yes now what's interesting here and this is something we've talked about

before and you know what i'm going to say that a lot today this is something we've talked about before because when you start talking about military strategy it runs through the ages there's threads that run through the ages and this is one of them he says while heeding the profit of my counsel. Avail yourself also of any helpful circumstances over and beyond the ordinary rules. According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one's plans. So don't get dead set on something. Don't get locked into a plan. You've got to be open to change it. Continuing, all warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable.

When using our forces, we must seem inactive. When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are away. When far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Fane disorder and crush him. Now, this is something that applies absolutely directly to Jiu-Jitza. to obviously. You know, oh, oh, you think you're going to get my arm?

Boom, I just swept you and got on top. Oh, I'm really panicking this situation. Oh, guess what? I just got deep half guard came out of the back and now I'm going to choke you. Back to the book. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is superior in strength, evade him. if your opponent is of caloric temper seek to irritate him pretend to be weak that he may grow arrogant

so this is something people don't think about the fact that hey if your opponent has superior strength evade him and obviously that's something that we also heard from Mao the same that was the same guerrilla strategy if your opponent's strong you avoid him and here he's saying if they're losing their temper a little bit go ahead and irritate him Help that along. Pretend to be weak so that your opponent grows arrogant and thinks doesn't have to worry about you. Continuing, if he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them, attack him where he's unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

these military devices leading to victory must not be divulged beforehand. It's strange that this is the oldest book and this thread runs throughout history and yet people interacting with each other will constantly decide they're just going to go toe to toe to toe. You're going to argue with me? Cool. I'm just going to go toe to toe with you. Yeah.

Yeah, this is an intellectual approach and I think that's, you know, if you're not detached it's harder to jump on that intellectual methodology. Yes. If you come at me with your argument head on or you accuse me or you're trying to tighten me up on something, you're just being super direct with me, you're right, I might get offended and then what I'm going to do,

I'm going to go right back at you. Instead of maneuvering on you. Right. So like, yeah, if someone's super smart or super calculated, they're way more likely to sign on to this type of stuff. as you start losing your temper with someone, think about what Echo Charles

just said. That means you're not being very smart and you're not being very calculated. It means you're making a mistake. It means there's a better route to go. Now, continuing, now, the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the

battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. So you've got a plan. And it's interesting, you use the word calculative, and he just used the same word. Now, this is something that I've talked about. To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence.

I'll say that again. To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting. and I always take that one step further I always take at the point that the enemy doesn't even know that there was a fight they didn't even know what was happening they thought they were having dinner

and going to sleep but they just got beat and that's especially true when you're part of a team and you're trying to win some you're trying to push your idea through you're trying to convince people of something the best way to convince them is when you didn't go toe to toe with them

they came to the conclusion themselves at least they think they did You fought them without fighting them. Thus, the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans. The next best is to prevent the junction of enemy forces. The next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field. And the worst policy of all is to besieged walled cities. The rule is not to besiege wall cities if it can possibly be avoided.

Now, this is another thing, and I've said this on this podcast before, which is if someone is super dug in on a position, why are you going to attack them? If you have this belief that you're just dug in on and I'm trying to maneuver around it, why am I going to attack that position? You've got, you know more about it, you've studied it. You've been in this argument 47 times in the last three weeks. So how am I going to come up against you when you've got the... that well-fortified position. Yeah. The answer is I'm not.

It's not going to work out good for me. Therefore, the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting. He captures their cities without laying any siege. He overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field. That's the goal. That is the goal. You know, that is something else about martial arts. I think, like, when you get someone that really knows how to fight,

Most of the time you don't have to fight. Most of the time, you can tell, people can tell that you know how to fight. Like, for instance, when they get in your face and you smile at them and you go, oh, let's do this. Then they realize this is not a good idea. Yeah. A little projection of power going on here. Thus, we may know that there are five essentials for victory. He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

fight. This is sort of like when we were doing Napoleon and just about everything in the book you can just stop and think about. And it's also sort of like jiu-jitsu in that what you learn, once you hear it, it seems super obvious, but why aren't you thinking about all the time? Right. And why do you make stupid mistakes that betray that rule? Yeah. Because it's not front of your mind. Right. Yeah. It's like I said, the two, when you're emotionally charged, you just handle things way different. which it's kind of ironic in a way because that's what makes this so effective when people normally handle themselves in that emotional way.

Yes. And so if you handle yourself in this way, that's the very thing that makes it effective. Yeah, the underlying theme to this, which hasn't been said. I mean, he doesn't address this the way I addressed it. The way I talk about it in our book, the way we talk about on the podcast is the idea that you're talking about, which is the idea of detaching and not being emotional, so that you can do things. so that you can make good decisions. Next, he will win who knows how to handle both superior

and inferior forces. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all ranks. So if you're in a leadership position and you got part of your team on board with the program, not good enough. You've got to get the whole team on board

with the program. That's who's going to want. win. He will win who prepared himself, prepared himself waits to take the enemy unprepared. I'm just going to wait until you're not ready. Why would I square up? Why would I do that? If you're ready to fight me, I'm not going to go. Let's just wait until you're not expecting it. Yeah, along with that emotional kind of state that some people are in where they don't exercise these types of strategies along with the emotional state is the egotistical state. You know, the guy who was like, hey, I'm just going to stand toe to toe to.

You're like, all right, that's tough. That's, you know, that might make for a show and if, you know, in a fighting, you know, MMA situation. But as far as the strategy to win, that's, again, it's cool for the show. But as it was winning, actually winning, it might not be the best. We'll just say that. I would agree with you. Number five, he will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

Victory lies in the knowledge of those five points. So that means you can't get micromanaged. If you're being micromanaged by higher powers, you're going to have problems. And here's the classic saying that everyone's heard. hence the saying if you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear

the result of a hundred battles if you know yourself but not the enemy for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat if you know neither the enemy nor yourself you will succumb

in every battle so you got to know yourself and that's the one that you know that's that's you that's your team that's you that's why you got to learn that's why you got to study that's why you got to train

that's why you've got to test yourself too that's why you got to put pressure on yourself because you don't know yourself unless you put yourself into those situations physically mentally stress that's what you want to go into so that you know yourself when we used to send seal

when we send seal uptoons overseas they know what their limitations are they've been tested hard individually and as a unit Yeah. Going on. Sun Su said, and this is actually, that's a quote from the book. So I guess he must have wrote that because this is allegedly a literal translation of Sun Su.

And so he starts off his statements with Sun Su said. The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands. But the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. So he's going to talk about that more. And it is laced throughout this book that you've got to focus on your game. You've got to focus on what you can do in the situation. Not worried about them, but like what can I do to be prepared?

Put myself beyond the possibility of defeat. hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy going on sun sue said the control of a large force is the same in principle as the control of a few men it is merely a question of dividing up their numbers. Now when I wrote about that and Laif and I talk about that all the time, that's decentralized command. Dividing up the numbers and having subordinate leadership running the teams and having subordinate leadership inside those teams running smaller teams.

That's all it is. The principle of control is the same. Now we get into a little bit of direct versus indirect. Again, a topic that I talk about all the time. In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory. Indirect tactics efficiently applied are inexhaustible as heaven and earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams

like the sun and moon they end but to begin anew like the four seasons they pass but to return once more so he's talking about how when you get to indirect tactics there's infinite numbers infinite numbers of ways to approach things

there are not more than five musical notes yet the combination of these these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard. There are not more than five primary colors, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever be seen. There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of them yield more flavors than can ever be tasted.

In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack, the direct and indirect. Yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers. The direct and indirect lead on to each other in turn. It is like a moving circle. You never come to an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination? He went a little, he went descriptive right there.

He was obviously convinced, as I am too, that even though there's basic maneuvers, the way that you apply them is limitless. And that's one of the things that makes leaders, hardship hard. Because when you're dealing with people, I mean, there's, there's a certain number of types of personalities you got to deal with. But then those personalities are all mixed together in a way that you have to react to them and treat them a certain way. And no two are the same. Yeah. And then you have to deal with how they interact with each other as well. And then not to mention the fact that

they may or may not change as individual, you know, as time goes on. Yes, exactly. As the day goes on. Yeah. They start getting hungry, they start getting angry. Right? Well, or maybe they just watched a romantic comedy and they're feeling a little different. Let's hope that's not the case. Or whatever. I don't know I said romantic comedy. All right. Back

to Sun Su. Sun Su said, whoever is in the first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy will be fresh for the fight. Whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to the battle will arrive exhausted. Therefore, the

A lever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him. Hear that all the time in MMA. Who's going to impose their will in this fight? By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy to approach of his own accord. That's bait. Or by inflicting damage, he can make it impossible for the enemy to draw near. If the enemy is taking his ease, meaning if the enemy is trying to rest, he can harass him. If well supplied, he can starve him out.

If quietly encamped, he can force him to move. So all these are just little things to basically annoy the enemy. Throw him off his game. Throw him off of his game. Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend. March swiftly to places where you are not expected. An army may march great distances without distress if he marches through country where the enemy is not. you can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you attack places which are not defended.

Totally obvious, right? You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you attack places which are not defended. This is something that we do in jiu-jitsu. You know, you're attacking the neck. You're attacking the neck. They're protecting the neck. Boom, boom, arm. Or you're going for Khmer.

You're going for Kimira. You're going for Kimura. Boom, straight arm lock, other arm. Yeah, big one is when you fake. submission to go for a guard pass or something that's not a submission, you know? Yeah. Because it throws your mind off. Like Greg does it really well where he'll go for that guillotine and you're like, oh, he's going for a

submission. So your mind is one thing to be like, okay, I see he's going for my neck and then yet my arm could be exposed. That's one thing because you're thinking, okay, this submission to this next submission. But if it's, you know, if they're going for something completely different, different aspect of the game, it throws you off even more. He's got me with that, like, three times in a row before. Yeah, that's basically going even further to the flank.

Yeah, yeah. You're expecting somebody to shoot you with a machine gun, they start lobbing mortars at you. Yeah. You weren't ready for that at all. Or they start, like, taking your guys hostage and then went through the back door or something like that, you know? Completely different.

Yeah. You can ensure the safety of your defense if you hold only positions that cannot be attacked. How obvious is that? Let's just get in positions where we can't be attacked, and then we will defend them very easily. The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known, for then the enemy will have to prepare against a possible attack

at several different points. And his forces being thus distributed in many directions, the numbers we shall have to face at any given point will be proportionally few. So you don't want to let the enemy know where you're going to attack him, because then he can defend that specific area. Whereas if he has to defend all of his areas, he's got less people defending where you're going to attack.

We did that really well in World War II. The D-Day. You know, the Germans did not know. They were suspect where we were going to attack, but they didn't know it was Normandy. So they had a lot of defenses strewn about in other areas. Right. It's not a strong.

Now here we go with how we deal with what the enemy does. For should the enemy strengthen his van, which van is like the division at the front. front. It's the front of your troops. Van. That's why they like the term vanguard. It's like your front guard. For should the enemy strengthen

his van, he will weaken his rear. Should he strengthen his rear? He will weaken his van. Should he strengthen his left? He will weaken his right. Should he strengthen his right? He will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will be everywhere weak. And that's what, you know, again, going to jiu-jitsu, when someone is, when you feel them passing,

and they're footlocking you, and they're thinking about a knee lock, and you, they got all those things going on at the same time, and you're just trying to spread your defenses thin. Then when they do one of those three, you're in trouble. And I always explain to people, you know, when you, it's easy, it's pretty easy for anybody. If you tell me, hey, I'm going to try and straighten out your arm,

and that's my whole focus is to stop you from straighten my arm, it's, you know, I can do it. I can do it pretty well. I'm well defended on that area. There's an opening somewhere else. Right. And the same thing with guard passing. If I'm trying to pass your guard all tight, low and heavy, and you're just defending, defending, defending, that means there's an opening somewhere else probably far away from you.

Yeah, super common one with guard passing is, you know, you smash to the, you know, one side, right? You're smashing, smashing to one side, and then you hop your hips over the other side. It's wide open all the time, and the harder you smash, the more wide open that far side is. Yeah, that's a common one. Yeah, it's just a distraction. Yeah. And then a flank. Sun Tsu's been doing it for 2,500 years.

Dang. All right. Do not repeat the tactics which you have gained on victory. Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances. Military tactics are like unto water. For water in its natural course runs away from high, places and hastens downward.

So in war, the way to avoid what is strong is to strike what is weak. Now, this is something that we definitely got raised within the seal teams. You don't use the same methodology over and over and over again in development pattern. You don't do it. No matter how minor you change things up, you change things up. And that's something that any good military unit does. It's something that anybody that's being threatened, you know, if your life is in danger, you don't set a pattern on what you do.

You know, change it up. Water shapes its course according to the ground over which it flows. The soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare, there are no constant conditions. You got to have an open mind.

You can't get trapped inside your own tactics. You can't get trapped inside your own game. And I see this with businesses we work with, with companies that we work with, where they have got their thing that they've done and they've been success for six years running. And then all of a sudden something changes. And they're trying to run the same methodology without ever stepping back and saying, wait a second, we did well. We had a 12% growth average for the past six years.

And all of a sudden we're down 22%. percent. What happened? Well, let's just do what we did before again and again. That's how people spiral into bankruptcy. Why? Because the conditions outside of the company changed. The conditions changed. The conditions changed. And they don't look and say, oh, the enemy adapted.

The competitors adapted. You know, we can look at some of these businesses that have gone on. I mean, the music industry has changed dramatically. CDs. I mean, imagine if you owned a CD production. warehouse somewhere. I mean, you wouldn't be making CDs. Yeah, Tower Records, classic example. Yeah. Yeah. And back to the, doing the same thing over and over again. Like, you know, if you succeed with this one, you know,

method, don't do, it's like salespeople. You know, salespeople, they really look, well, a lot of them, they really look at sales as this kind of war, you know, it's me again. Someone makes the sale. Either you sell them your product or they sell you why they can't buy, whatever. when you see as a consumer when you see the sales especially from sales people directly when you see the same language over and over after while you're like i see exactly what you're doing i see what you're doing you know how they ask you they'll ask you a question that if you say no to you look dumb or something like that you know so i don't know if they're just say yes 15 times in a row and then yeah they'd be like oh obviously right and you're like i can't say you kind of feel like you can't say no but after

while you're like i see what you're doing you know So it may work because they probably teach them that. You know, so it's like, oh, yeah, that works. That works. That works. That works. But yeah, everyone's starting to get hip to it. Stuff won't work anymore.

It's definitely not going to work on Echo, Charles. No, no, no, no. I see what you're doing. I see what you guys are doing. All right. And this is just restating the same thing. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning may be called a heaven-born captain.

So if you can look at what your opponent's doing And this is something that Again, I see companies do it I see jiu-jitsu players do it They have that one thing that they're used to And then someone's really good at defending that one thing And they just keep going against it Keep going against it, keep going against it

Keep running into that brick wall And it's not going to get you where you want to be It's problematic Here we go from Sun Tzu A soldier's spirit is keenest in the morning By noon day it has begun to flag and in the evening his mind

is bent only on returning to camp a clever a clever general therefore avoids an army when its spirit is keen but attacks when it is sluggish and inclined to return this is the art

of studying moods I like that the art of studying moods is about knowing people Yeah, is that kind of like the guy in jujitsu class who shows up like 15 minutes before the class ends when everyone's been rolling? Yeah, yeah, he's getting everyone when they're in sluggish wings. Yeah, when they're ready to turn and we go back to camp. Like, hey, guys, want to roll?

All fresh. It is a military axiom not to advance uphill against the enemy nor to oppose him when he comes downhill. Do not pursue an enemy who simulates flight. do not attack soldiers whose temper is keen do not swallow a bait offered by the enemy do not interfere with an army that's returning home that's a good one they're going they're running let them run

let them go home they're going to fight hard to get home right they got visions of their family in their head when you surround an army leave an outlet free do not press a desperate foe too hard. And this is something you see psychologically a lot. You know, with an argument, you got a couple executives,

and maybe the senior executive has a plan, and no one likes the plan. Well, you just don't want to box him in and prove him wrong in front of everybody, right? You don't want to do that. You want to be crafty. You want to get your son Sue together. You want to leave him a little opening,

where he can say, you know what, after reconsidering, I've decided I want to go with this other way because I figured out that blah, blah, blah, blah. I want to give him an out. Yeah. What you don't want to do is make him stick to this bad plan because his ego is making him stick there. Recognize do not linger in dangerously isolated positions when you're doing Jiu-Jitsu. don't when someone gets a cross-side, you scramble, you go crazy. Don't let them settle there. When somebody's trying to get that guy collar up underneath your head and they're

going to have you trapped, don't let them get there. Don't linger in dangerously isolated positions. Move. Yeah. Yeah, it's it gets so complex with this and in jiu-jitsu where it's so just consider just what you said. Because this kind of, it kind of overflows into another part that he just talked about. So let's say the example of the guy passing your guard into your side control, right?

During his pass, you said don't let him settle. Exactly. So, but when he, let's say, whatever, you lose the fight for whatever reason and he does settle. Now you're faced with a situation where if he's settled on you hard, where he's, you can tell he's putting strength into holding that position and then you try to scramble, you're going against, you're going full speed, you know, toe to toe to toe. Like how we said not to do. So at that point, you've got to change your strategy. if you had already lost that battle, and he's settled and he's putting his energy into holding you.

Now you got to play another tactic that he said. Let him, you know, you got to relax a little bit, so he starts relaxing a little bit. You know, and it's like, that's a common thing. That's like, you know, a pretty well-known strategy, I would say, when you get advanced in jiu-jitsu. But it's crazy how he just lays it out, and that's the perfect, exact, exact example.

Yeah. All in one little move. One little move. And actually he continues on that same on that same thread in hemmed in situations in other words when you're surrounded and you're You're you're under the bad situation you must resort to stratagem and stratagem doesn't really mean strategy It means like tricks or deceptions So you've you've you've given up you've you've you've given up your position the person is dominating you now and exactly what you're saying is correct When someone has got you in that position, either in an argument or a plan or a situation that you're in or a relationship, they've got you locked down.

Stop fighting. It's not going to work. They've got you. If you continue to struggle, you're just going to wear yourself out. You're going to worsen the scenario. Stop. And now you have to start thinking about a trick to get out of there, some kind of a better tactic, some kind of a deception, something to get you out of there. Because going strength to strength isn't going to do it.

it, they're in a superior position. You know, sometimes you can tell someone's doing that if you have them in a situation and they start actually using this tactic, little tricks, one that I've been able to recognize is they do like some ad hominem argument. They'll start attacking something else. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. But it's all, yeah, if you kind of have a handle on the whole situation, it's real obvious. Yeah, yeah.

And then he says, in a desperate position, you must fight. Now the difference here is now there's a submission hold on you. Yeah, no choice. Yeah. You have to fight. You're going to fight or you're going to tap. Yeah. So you get that situation where it's gone beyond just they're secure and they've got

you in a dominant position, but now they're actually going to kill you. Right. You have no choice but to fight. It's like the last level of settling. Now this is interesting. There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must not be attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign, which must not be obeyed.

So it's always interesting to me when you hear somebody that's a military mastermind, and they're saying that there are orders from their sovereign that must not be obeyed. And I think we've heard that, and this is something that people aren't familiar with the military, or aren't familiar with military history, they think everyone just follows orders, follows orders, follows orders. But Napoleon, we've heard say it, Sun Tsu, we've heard say it,

we've heard these repeated things where people say, you know what, that's the wrong order, and I'm not going to do it. And it's interesting, too. The other dichotomy is all these people talk about the necessity of discipline. And inherent discipline is absolutely

the following of orders. But as much as, as stringent as I am about discipline. I want my guys to question my words. I want them to say, hey, wait a second. Why is Jocko making us do this? He's wrong. I don't want them just obeying me blindly.

You don't want your team obeying you blindly. You don't want that. You want them to be thinking. Back to the book. The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemies not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him, not on the chance of his not attacking,

but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. So what that is, again, he's putting the preponderance of the outcome, not on what the enemy does, but on what you do. It's not what happens to you in your life. It's what you do. It's what you prepare for. It's your own,

readiness that's going to affect the outcome. Not the chance of what the enemy is done, done. It's how have you made your position? How have you set yourself up? How have you prepared? How have you trained? How have you worked? That's where the outcome

comes from. Not what the world does to you, but what you do to the world. There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general. One, recklessness, which leads to destruction.

Two, cowardice, which leads to capture. So those two, you got one guy that's a maniac that doesn't care, is going to go get after it, he's going to die. You got someone else that's a coward, he's going to get captured. Three, a hasty temper that can be provoked by insults. Dangerous. A delicacy of honor that is sensitive to shame. sort of the same thing

and an over solicitude for his men which exposes him to worry and trouble an over solicitude that's basically you over-affectionate you care about the men so much that exposes you to worry and trouble these are the five besetting sins of a general

ruinous to the conquer ruinous to the conduct of war some things to watch out for and it's interesting, you know, obviously the one that's that's I guess the most controversial to me is that over solicitude for his men which exposes him to worry and trouble

because, you know, in the modern military you know, he was dealing with conscripts so even it's interesting even conscripts back then he said you could get too affectionate with your conscripts. Mm-hmm. and now we have brothers and so

you're gonna you're gonna care about your guys you're gonna care about your guys more than anything else in the world but what you have to counter that with is not hey I'm not gonna care about them no it's I'm gonna make sure I do everything I can to keep them safe

yeah yeah I think like you know how in a lot of companies they discourage fraternizing with you know, your coworkers. So I used to work in the nightclub industry where, you know, from time to time people would hook up. So what that can result in is, you know, people who are too focused on the relationship between each other versus their job.

Oh, yeah. So, I mean, this is a total assumption, but maybe that's what he's talking about. No, that's exactly what he's talking about. That's exactly what he's talking about. but if you take that into the military scenario it's you know like I said you're going to care about your guys so much

and you have to counter that with the fact that you have a duty right and you have you have a job yeah and that everybody on your team like when you're in the SEAL teams you all know the risk yeah everybody knows the risk everybody knows that when you go on an operation it might be your last operation you get hit with an ID

you get shot you get mortared you get blown up I mean, everybody accepts that risk. And that, therefore, as a leader, you know you're not imposing that risk upon them. They volunteered for that risk. And I think that's what allows a modern military commander to say, hey, I love these guys, but they all know what they signed up for. There's going to be risk here, and we got a job to do. as opposed to, hey, I love these guys.

They don't want to be here, and I'm going to send them to their deaths. That would not, that would be a different scenario, a harder scenario. Yeah, or you got close. Let's say, you know, you're in command of, you know, 10 guys. Five of those guys are your best friends, and you get too attached in the sense that you have a mission that you have to do, a dangerous one. But you're like, hey, I'm not going to send those five guys because they're going to be at risk. I want to keep them safe, you know, so I don't want to. send them there.

So the other five guys go rather than the 10 and, you know, messes up your whole job. Which, oddly enough, I always send, like, the guys I love into the worst scenarios. Yeah. All my brothers, they would be lining up and saying, I'm going, I'm going, and it was fired up. See, yeah, I mean, you're obviously a very specific type of person.

Yeah. And your guys probably are, too, I would imagine. But still, you're still exercising that discipline. between you know them potentially going to their death and that job you guys have to do so you're you're thinking of it in a smarter way we know what's interesting i just thought this like if a guy got in trouble for whatever reason when we were over on deployment whenever i was on deployment in combat if a guy got in trouble you know what their punishment would be you're not allowed to go on a mission i know so that just tells you what kind of an attitude yeah you know the guys that we're

working with yeah is like oh you can't go on these next three missions The guys are angry. They're hurt because they realize they're letting their buddies down. And if something goes wrong and they're not there, it's a nightmare. Yeah, and their duty, their job is, it's part of them, you know, where I was listening to this thing where he's talking about the Amish, Amish people, right? And they're really into work, you know, hard work and stuff. So one of the punishments for the kids would be you're not allowed to work. Yeah, that's the same thing.

It's like, dang, it's like, yeah, same thing. Yeah. Meanwhile, my kids, I got to beat them senseless to get them do any work. Just kidding. Just kidding. But I guarantee they're not working as hard as some Amish kid out in the field. Yeah. Putting up buildings with the wood nails that they do.

I mean, that's awesome. Yeah, the work is obviously part of their identity. Yeah. You know, so like, you know, certain things people, let's say, quote unquote, normal people might find, like, like exercise, for example. example. Like if so if let's say you're just an average person who's like man I got I'm gonna make a new year's resolution I'm gonna lose some weight or whatever I'm gonna get a trainer it's hard for them it's work for them right so if the trainer is like hey today's rest

day and they're being like oh sweet you know but then you take you for example like how you're saying your wife is like hey maybe don't go to jiu-jitsu today you're all pissed yeah you know so it's the exact opposite but so that's kind of the scenario when it's ingrained in you and it starts to become part of your identity work or not work you want to you want to get that done. Yeah. That's interesting how those embedded feelings develop in your life. But what an awesome deal.

Like, if you think about that, we would actually, if we had to punish our guys, we'd punish them by saying you can't go on two missions. That's perfect. They'd be angry. They'd be bummed. They'd be let down. They'd, like, help everyone get ready, and they'd stand there whenever we was leaving. And learn their lesson for sure.

Heard them. Heard them. All right Next When the enemy is close at hand and remains quiet He is relying on the natural strength of his position This is a good one So when you're when you're in jiu jitsu

When someone for instance pulls guard real quick You know they've got a good guard You know when someone's like all standing up and all upright And reaching for your collar while you're standing You know they got some judo going on So it's funny how When When people have a dominant position

They'll lean towards it Yeah If his place Of encampment is easy of access He is tendering a bait So if it looks too good to be true It's too good to be true You got to watch that

When there is much running about It means that the critical moment has come When some are seen advancing And some retreating it is a lure. When soldiers stand leaning on their spears, they are faint from want of food. If those who are sent to draw water begin by drinking themselves, the army is suffering from thirst. If the enemy sees an advantage to be gained and makes no effort to secure it, the soldiers are exhausted. If birds gather on any spot, it is unoccupied. If there is disturbance,

in the camp, the general's authority is weak. If the banners and flags are shifted about, sedition is afoot. When an army feeds its horses with grain and kills its cattle for food, and when the men do not hang their cooking pots over the campfires showing that they will not return to their tents, you may know that they are determined to fight to the death. The sight of men whispering together in small, knots and speaking in subdued tones points to dissatisfaction amongst the rank and file.

Now, all those right there, what I really like about those, because some of them obviously are a little bit archaic, you know, people leaning on their spears, people not putting out their cooking pots, those aren't things that we're going to see today. But what's so key about this is how observing how people act can tell you much more if you're paying attention to it. Yeah. You know, you see people talking amongst themselves in small group, there's a problem going on. Yep.

You know, those are the kind of things that you've got to be aware of, especially as a leader. When you're in a leadership position and you see and you look and you watch and you listen. Because I see some people, some leaders, they get isolated from the troops. They get isolated from the situation. They get isolated from the enemy. They're not reading what's happening. So you've got to have this awareness and the sensitivity, right? It's a sensitivity.

It's a sixth sense. Oh, hey, something's not right here. And what are you picking that up from? Yeah, you know, when you walk in a room, everyone's all talking. Or you see from a distance people are talking. And then when you either walk by or you join them, they happen to be done talking every single time. That's not going to be a good sign. No, no.

They're talking about you. back to the book he who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them so when you're saying oh we'd have nothing to fear here we can take these guys we can win that contract we can beat the opponent we can win that's when you're going to be taken down if soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you they will not prove submissive and unless submissive they will be practically useless. If when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be useless.

Therefore, soldiers must be treated in the first instance with humanity, but kept under control by means of iron discipline. This is a certain road to victory. If in training soldiers' commands are habitually enforced, the army will be well disciplined. So now you do realize that Sun Tzu, 2,500 years ago, was leading humans. And if you came out of the gate

before they knew you and you treated them bad, they were never going to work for you. They were never going to submit to what you want to do. And once they were attached to you, if you had punishments and now you had built enough respect and then you said you were going to punish them for something that they did, you set a certain standard

and then you don't hold it, they're going to be equally useless. Inconsistency. Inconsistency. I firmly believe it. If in training soldiers' commands are habitually enforced, the army will be well disciplined. You've got to stay consistent,

and you've got to remember that you're dealing with humans. When common soldiers are too strong and their officers are too weak, the result is insubordination. And this is something that I saw. a couple times in my career where I had a guy that worked for me who was a tough guy. This happened a couple of times. Just a badass guy, super tough beast, hardcore go-getter.

And when they worked for me, man, I loved them. And they did anything. I would tell them to go, you know, run through a brick wall. They would start running. And they would run through the brick wall. They'd figure it out. They'd get through that thing. Super hard.

and then one guy like I went to another team and he went on another deployment and got sent home from deployment because he was just too much to handle and his support he didn't I talked to him about he goes my officers were weak

he literally said my officers were weak and so here is like a caged animal that if you don't if he doesn't know who the boss is and he doesn't respect the boss he's not going to listen to he he was the alpha male right yeah yeah and when he was the alpha male he was doing whatever he wanted it wasn't listening

to these people that were in charge of him yeah what is that like a like a mix of like he doesn't I don't say look up to him but there's a sense of that right where if if your leader is it's just respect you have that kind of ingrained respect and then not to mention on top of that you don't fear any real consequences from him because it's like you know he's kind of weak I can take whatever he can dish out kind of thing you know he's kind of thing you know he's kind of weak I can take whatever he can dish out kind of thing. So it's both of those, you think? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. This one guy that this happened with, I taught him Jiu-Jitsu, and he was excited about it in a way that I've never seen anyone excited. Like, super happy about knowing that you could choke people. And he would get into fights in the civilian world and come and give me these full debriefs and ask me for, like, pointers and judgment. and that was, you know, a warrior that liked to fight.

And he found out that you could grab people and then submit them. He was super excited about it. Like a little kid. And I always say that that's kind of the risk you run with teaching people, Jiu-Jitsu, because it is like, it's a superpower, essentially, because you don't have to learn that much for it to be effective in this huge way. So, you know, like, kind of like, what was it, Superman? With great power comes great responsibility.

Yeah. Yeah. It goes on to say, when the officers are too strong and the common soldiers too weak, the result is collapse. So when you put the super hardcore guy over that can't modulate his leadership, he can't back off and build people up before he starts to smash him, you're going to get collapse. And that's something you definitely got to look out for. Especially if you're a super strong leader and you come and take over a team that's been led by somebody that's weak. There's a chance that the players in the team are weak. And now you've got to come in and then you've got to build them up

before you let loose your vicious leadership power. Right? You can't just come in there with the iron fist and start dropping hammers. No, you need to say, hey, guys, all right, let's go, let's build this team up. Then you can escalate your own force as your subordinates grow and become powerful themselves. But you don't want there to be a huge gap between your power and theirs. Because they won't develop into it.

They'll just be in the shadow. They won't grow in the shadow. You got to come down and let some light get to them and let them grow. Right. When the general is weak and without authority, when his orders are not clear and distinct, when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner,

the result is utter disorganization. Pretty clear. If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it. If fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler's bidding. Once again, disobeying the chain of command, son sue himself, disobeying the chain of command. This is a big one. The general who advances without coveting fame. and retreats without fearing disgrace,

whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign is the jewel of the kingdom. So that guy that's not doing this to get famous, that's not doing this for awards, that's not doing this to get promoted, it's not being brave to be promoted, he's doing this to protect the country

or to carry out the mission, not doing it for glory. And furthermore, the same person can retreat without feeling like a disgrace. That means they're going to protect their people without going, oh, we can't, we can't fall back. This person is the jewel of the kingdom. The jewel of the kingdom. And it's beautiful when you work for people like that. That what they're trying to do is they're trying to do good.

They're trying to do their mission. They're trying to do good for the country. They're trying to do good for the team. They're trying to do good for the business. That's what they're trying to do. They're not trying to get promoted. They're not trying to get an award. They're not trying to get a good fitness report or a good evaluation.

They're trying to do a good job. And that's why when people ask me a lot, you know, oh, I've got this boss that wants to get the credit for everything. Give it to them. Give it to them. Let them look good. Don't do it for your glory. Give that glory away. It feels good to give glory away.

Give it away. I told you used to work in the nightclub, right? industry back when I was young and kind of the protocol would be to you know we'd work or whatever and the bartenders would give us tips like you know like a little little tips right so at the end of the week it'd be kind of pooled right and and we'd get some tips at the end of the week it's cool whatever and um so my boss was back when I first started my bought the head door guy right he was at the end of the week he called his own little meeting with us we're like all right so he kind of goes over some stuff. I don't even know what it was.

And, um, and he busted at the end. He's like, oh, hey, guys, uh, so yeah, we, we have tips. Um, so what I did was, you know, hey, you guys are doing a great job. So what I did was, I, I, I, I took my tips and I gave it to you guys. And he kind of had this look on his face looking at us as if he needed us to be like, wow, that was so great. But you know, when the look is so transparent. Yeah. He's like, so. And I was like, this guy. It's like, wow. like so disingenuous you know like he he wanted the credit and he wanted us to be like oh thank you thank you you you know it wasn't that much by the way yeah it was you know 14 dollars each if that

because we got to divide it anyway but yeah that was like it was a clear example of that very thing right there where you can tell it giving us the tips i know why you did that yeah okay you lost my my youngest daughter she does good deeds for the sole purpose of increasing birthday present, Christmas present. Doesn't that kind of go into a different strategy altogether, though? I guess so. You know, I think they can. It's pretty cute.

And you see the sexual old, like, daddy. I decided it would be really great if I picked up your socks. Right. Since my birthday is coming. Right. But that's another tactic. It's like, it's called reciprocal something. Like when you do something and then.

You expect something back. Yeah. Yeah. But what that. effective. Harri Krishna is used to do it. They'd be like, you know what? Hey, hey, whatever their message is.

And they'd be like, hey, take this free gift. And they give you like, I don't know, a flower or a book or something. And they know that that'll leave you the typical person. They'd leave them with a feeling of, dang, like, I kind of owe this person. He was so nice to me. I can't just walk off and be a dick, you know? So I'll give you five bucks or, I don't know, a dollar. Yeah, especially when you recognize they're doing it.

In fact, you do yourself a disservice to fall for it because they're going to keep doing it, you know? It's basically gilting someone in to do something, but it's called reciprocrop, I don't know, something reciprocal something. Well, I guess we'll look that up and figure it out later. Otherwise, what's called reciprocal something. Yeah. All right.

Now, here we go. This is, speaking of kids, this is awesome. Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys. Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you,

unto death. Completely true statement. Completely true statement. If, however, you are indulgent but unable to make your authority felt, kind-hearted, but unable

to enforce your commands, and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder, then your soldiers must be likened to spoiled children. They are useless for any practice. purpose.

I think that speaks for itself. If you are so lenient with your troops, when they say indulgent, that's what I mean. They mean, like, super lenient. When you're lenient with your troops, when you can't make your authority felt, when you're super kind-hearted, you're unable to enforce your commands.

All those things, you're going to end up with spoiled little kids for troopers, and they're not going to be worthless. I got a little saying about kids. Lay it on me. If you're helping them, you're hurting them. Think about it. If you're helping them, you're hurting them.

Yeah. You want me to tie your shoe? Tie yourself. Because when they tie their shoes, that literally trains their fine motor skills. If you want them, you know, if they want a glass of water, go get your own glass of water. Right. They want help moving, you know, something across the hospital. hallway, you move it across the hallway.

If you're helping your kids, you're hurting your kids. Right. And I could take it one step further and say, if you're hurting your kids, you're helping kids, but I'm not going to do that. Too far. Too far. You're hurting. But really, I do think about that.

When your kids ask you for something, you've got to say, okay, is this something they can do themselves? Even if it's a struggle for them, even if it's a challenge for them. I mean, for a while, my daughter was, you know, we're late for school and, oh, can you just tie my shoes? No. I can't tie your shoes. you can tie your shoes.

And that's when they work on their fine motor skills. And that's when they learn that they have to get the skill. And they become more self-reliant. Yeah. Yeah, fully. And obviously, I'm not going to wage some kind of semantical battle with you or nothing like that. But it depends on what you mean by help. And I talked about this before where you have systemic help and direct help.

So systemic help is exactly what you're doing. Tie your own shoes. How about you get, how about I teach you to tie your shoes? Or how about I prepare you for this shoe-tying world that you're about to embark in? That's systemic help. That's the real help, in my opinion. Same thing like a homeless person. You give a homeless person a dollar that's direct help.

That doesn't help. That's hurting them, as you would say. So what is that called direct help? Direct help? So don't give your children direct help. Systemic help. Your job is to prepare kids to do everything. Ideally, look, that's in a perfect world, everything on their own by the time they move out.

And you actually can prepare a human to do everything on their own because at least you prepare them to face a challenge, research how to overcome it, practice overcoming it, and then overcome it. So if you teach them, if you teach them, you know, you say you can give them a fish or you can teach them out of fish, you can teach them to learn how to fish on their own. That's what you really want to do. Yes. Put that on a T-shirt. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. Right. So if you go, the more systemic, you could probably.

end up breaking it down into maybe three things. And, you know, whatever those things are, I know they're going to have something to do with how to think, how to manage your emotions, how to adapt, like a lot of the real basic things that are going to in one way or another apply to everything. It's interesting that you go from, this isn't back in the book, I went back to the conversation. It's funny how you're talking about Sun Tzu Ardawar, and we're talking about kids, we're talking about business, talking about nightclub. talking about jiu-jitsu.

All right. Back to the book now, for real. Those who were called skillful leaders of old knew how to drive a wedge between the enemy's front and rear to prevent cooperation between his large and small divisions to hinder the good troops from rescuing the bad, the officers from rallying their men. So when you are looking at your opponent,

what can you do to split them up? What can you do to interfere with what they're trying to make happen? That's a skill set in its own. So instead of worrying about attacking you, I'm worried about I'm focused on dispersing you or splitting you up. Instead of worrying about attacking you, I'm worried about hindering people from helping you. It's a different way of thinking about waging a battle. Instead of thinking about the battle itself, what other ways are there to go about this? More creatively.

Rapidity is the essence of war. take advantage of the army's of the enemy's unreadiness make your way by unexpected routes and attack unguarded spots now here you go back to the human side of things carefully study the well-being of your men and do not overtax them concentrate your energy and hoard your strength keep your army continually on the move and devise unfathomable plans now this is interesting. Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape and they will prefer to fight. They will prefer death to flight. Officers and men alike will put forth their utmost strength. At the critical moment, the leader of an army acts like one who has climbed up a height and then kicks away the ladder behind him.

He carries his men deep into hostile territory before he shows his hand. He burns his boats and breaks his cooking pots. It's a second time we've heard about those cooking pots. Obviously that meant something back in the day. That meant it's on. We're not coming back. We're no need for dinner tonight. But that's an

attitude to have. And it's interesting, you know, this is somewhat contradictory to some of the other things that he said in the book. You know, if the enemy is strong, fade away. And now he's saying, put your soldiers in a position where there's no escape.

So that's contrary. But I understand, I think I understand, or the way I translate that is, if you have to put your, if you have to accomplish something very challenging and you have no choice, step into it. Step into it, kick away the ladder. Break your cooking pots and let the guys know we're not coming back from this. We have what one choice? And that's victory.

All in. Thus, or sorry, without waiting to be marshaled, the soldiers will be constantly on the kivay. Ki-Viva, which means who goes, which means on watch, key-viva. Without waiting, this is the important part. Without waiting to be asked, they will do your will. Without restriction, they will be faithful. Without giving orders, they can be trusted.

So you get the pure decentralized command, where without, waiting to be asked to do something, they're going to do it. That's what you want your troopers to do. They will do your will. Without restrictions, they will be faithful. You don't have to hold on to them. You don't have to give them commands.

You don't have to give them orders. They're going to be faithful to you. Without giving orders, they can be trusted. That's true decentralized command. That's what you want. And then to wrap this one up. Unhappy is the fate of one who tries to win his battles and succeed in his attacks. without cultivating the spirit of enterprise.

Meaning we want everyone to think. And we want everybody to be on the same page. Move not unless you see an advantage. Use not your troops unless there is something to be gained. Fight not unless the position is critical. Again, that's contrary to what I just talked about, But I think the reason he said that is because sometimes you have to. Sometimes you get into a decisive situation.

You have to fight. You have to win. No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen. And spleen when he says that, that used to be where people thought that the seat of emotion was. So your emotion came from your spleen. So he's saying what you've been saying the whole night. No ruler should put troops in the field merely to gratify his own emotions. And that emotion could be anything.

It could be pride. It could be irritation to be anything. No general should fight a battle simply out of peak. And that's that's pride and ego. If it is to your advantage to make a forward move, make a forward move. If not, stay where you are. such is the art of war obviously so much to be learned from the past from the ancients and also it's so accessible there's so many lessons to be learned there lessons that if you learn they're

mistakes that you don't have to make yourself all you have to do is open a book and open your mind and you'll be there and I think we can now go to questions from the interwebs let's do it but before that internet stuff up go to onet.com slash jaco and why do you want to do that get some good stuff yeah good supplements shroom tech if you're if you're into high intensity workouts for you know some prolonged period of time gives you gives you that that boost and that sustenance as far as output goes, alpha brain, helps your mind work.

That's the ones that I think that I recommend. And the Warrior Bar. Do yourself that favor in life. And I do the krill oil. Of course, krill oil. I went to a meeting this week. They had a big old stack of Warrior bars when I went in.

They brought it. They were in the game. My boy Zach was in the game down there. That'll surely enhance the meeting for sure at Warrior bars. You did. You did. powered me up. Also, if you're in the mood to support this podcast, go to joccopodcast.com before you shop at amazon.com. Click on that little link there and you can kind of passively support to Jocko podcast. Boom.

Or get some shirts if you like them. Jocco store.com or a mug, coffee mug, up before the enemy. First question. Jocko, as an overthinker, you missed some factors anxiety, low confidence, low IQ, perfectionism, and often a failure to prioritize. Yeah,

so this is a question from the last podcast, and this guy just sent me this tweet and I thought it was a good assessment because I'm not an overthinker and maybe this guy is, and sorry I don't have his

Twitter call sign there, but maybe he's an overthinker so he kind of knew about it, And if you don't remember the question, you know, it's someone that overthinks things. They get analysis paralysis, right? They just start thinking and thinking and thinking. They're frozen from their own thoughts, too many thoughts. And so I thought these were good little factors here.

And basically, to me, it all boils down to actually fear. Because if you're thinking, then you're not taking action. And if you're not taking action, then there's no consequence. And if there's no consequence, then there's nothing to be afraid of. So I think that the overthinking can be an excuse for actual fear and same thing with like, oh, I'm a perfectionist.

That's also fear. It's fear of not being perfect. And then on top of that, low confidence. Well, if you have low confidence, guess what? You're afraid. Your confidence is low. You're not sure of yourself. So you sit around and think about doing it

instead of actually doing it. And then anxiety? Well, yeah, anxiety actually is fear. You're afraid to do something. And then IQ, now that might be, I guess, maybe someone has a high IQ and therefore they're thinking a lot. And maybe that's not fear. But let me ask you a question. If you're so smart, then why aren't you taking action and making something happen? So you've got a big IQ that's no excuse to sit around and overthink things, especially because if you're so smart, why can't you come up with a quick solution. Why can't you realize that overthinking is actually causing the problem

harm? It's not moving the problem forward. So, quit thinking so much and take action. Next question. Okay, he's talking about the Tim Ferriss, the video, that was the extension of your Tim Ferriss interview, popular one about you talking about martial artists, or martial arts. What are the best martial arts? If you haven't seen that, and you can look it up. So, he says, with respect to the above-mentioned video about your views on real martial arts.

I have one quick question. You said that you came to your conclusion based on a sparring match between yourself and one of your fellow Navy SEALs. Was the match between yourself and the traditional martial arts with 20 years' experience a friendly sparring match,

typical in training, where he was pulling his punches and strikes, or was he attacking you with full force? From my observation, Jiu-Jitsu guys collect some headshots while going in for a takedown. And if a traditional Karateka karate practitioner doesn't hold back, would this have some devastating effects in the long run

similar to what pro football players experience? I would love to get your take on this as someone who has real world experience. Okay, so first of all, I didn't come to a conclusion based on that one event. I mean, that event influenced my thoughts today, but even right now I don't have a conclusion. Someone could show me something today It's possible that I go Wow, that worked really well

I never thought of that and that's new That now trumps everything else It could happen Not likely though My mind is still open But that's not likely I've seen a lot Now in that particular scenario He was usually

He wasn't using a striking art A traditional striking art He was using a traditional grappling art Actually Aikido And so he He was grappling with me He wasn't throwing punches at me But it doesn't matter

because I have sparred and or fought with plenty of people over the years that were absolutely trying to knock me out. No doubt about it. And the fact of the matter is, it doesn't work. Even where this guy above, like for instance, this guy in the question, he says, if a traditional karate practitioner doesn't hold back, it would have the same devastating effect in the long run, similar to what pro football players experience. That statement actually defeats itself. Because if you watch a football game,

those guys get hit in the head a hundred times during a football game. And how often do they get actually knocked unconscious? Not very often. If you multiply whatever 10 players per side that are actually banging heads times however any plays, you know, you're talking about thousand,

you know, probably more than a thousand head, on head contacts in a football game. And there might be one knockout in a game. Sometimes there's no knockouts. Yeah, typically none. Yeah. So the fact of the matter is hitting someone in the head is not a guaranteed knockout

by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it rarely occurs. It actually rarely occurs in boxing. Where two guys are trained to do that. So it's hard to knock somebody out. And it's the same thing in, if you watch UFC, especially the early UFC's, this was proven over and over again. Yeah, the grappler is going to take some hits on the way in,

but they're going to get in, and they're going to take the person down. And, of course, do you have a puncher's chance? Of course you do. There's a very small chance that when you shoot it on somebody, they time a knee or they time a punch, and it happens to hit you right in the spot that knocks you out. It does happen. It happens in UFC occasionally.

If you look at the number of takedowns to the number of knockouts that happen while the takedown is going on, it's not a big number at all. Correct. So you don't want to rely on that as your formation of self-defense at all. Now, when things evolved, eventually to where the strikers were wrestlers too. And you got guys like Chuck and you got Tito and you got Randy where it wasn't their striking that was preventing the takedown. It was because they were badass wrestlers.

That's what was stopping the takedown. It had nothing to do with the way they punched. So you really can't count on striking. to stop a grappler. That is not a good plan. Right. To say, hey, I'm going to get so good at striking that I'm going to stop a grappler. That is not a good plan.

What you have to do is learn to grapple. You have to learn to wrestle. You have to learn Jiu-Jitsu. And the opposite side of that is you can't count on grappling to take down a striker because that person might know how to wrestle. Yeah. And therefore, you need to know how to strike. So it goes back to what I say all the time.

You got know how to grapple. You got to know how to strike. Right. Yeah. And if he's talking, he says a traditional karate practitioner. Traditional. So, and I'm assuming the only understanding I have of traditional is he doesn't do karate and jiu-jitsu. He's not a mixed martial artist.

He just knows karate. So what I understand. Yes. And I've taken karate before. And there was no takedown defense. There was no takedown. There was no functioning in any capacity on the ground. And so.

yeah and how you say like okay over the long term okay you're gonna have head trauma and lasting damage if you take sustained head trauma repetitive over the years really but yeah we're worried about the next 42 seconds of a fight that's about to happen not the next 30 decades of my life where you can see me break down because i took some head trauma exactly right so you'd have to get let's say that for the example of this question that your experience with this this guy, he was a karate guy, and he was going full speed. And he didn't knock you out. We'll just assume that he didn't knock you up.

You'd have to go through. Which, I'm just going to restate that that is a very safe assumption to assume that the karate guy was not able to knock me out, that I was able to come in, you know, stand there, get at a good distance, fake him with my hands, touch his face a couple times, he throws a big punch, I do a double leg take down, he's on his back, it's game over. Yeah. And by the way, go watch any YouTube video of, you know, Jiu-Jitsu versus whatever.

Right. And it's the same outcome every single time. You know, occasionally there'll be won with a lot of hits because it's the chance knockout or the chance of something else happened. Yeah. But 99% of the time. Yeah. It's double-leg takedown, slam on the ground, game over.

Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, fully. Look at, who did Randy Coucher fight? That pro boxer, Tony, James Tony. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was that exactly. Here's a world-class boxer, professional boxer. What did Randy do? Got inside, took him down, game over. Oh, why didn't you knock him out? Because you can't.

Right. You can't just do that. You can't just knock people out. Yeah, fully. And that's not to mention it. I mean, I'm going to mention it, but that it is not to mention that, especially if you practice the more self-defense, like if it's heavily self-defense oriented jujitsu, one of the first things you learn is distance management. one other first things you learn. It's like you almost can't get past that element of it. So you will take hits, of course. Maybe you'll take hit to the top of your head, shoulders or whatever. But yeah, significant strikes. Anything to warrant how it's stated here in the question, long term damage compared to football players,

you, back to your situation, you going with this guy, let's say he did go full speed. You would have to do probably 10 to 15 bouts of that every single day. for a long time for you to have any sustained damage. And then... So maybe if this guy's taking the long-term strategic view, that he's going to continue to spar me and hit me in the head until I'm 70 years old and have a hugelistic disease. And maybe, I'm saying maybe.

Because if he's a traditional guy, he doesn't know how to manage the takedown. So knowing how to manage the takedown makes your strikes more effective. You don't have that. Your strikes are not effective. So, okay, you take one hit, let's say. Let's say you take five hits, right? you controlling the fight as much as as Jiu-Jitsu does,

even if you're not that high level versus the guy who doesn't know Jiu-Jitsu way outweighs this grossly to the point that these things are, aside from the puncher's chance, ineffective. And I think UFC 1, 2, 3, you know, as before people start

to get hit to the whole Jiu-Jitsu thing, but before people knew Jiu-Jitsu, they just knew their other stuff. That was the testing ground. That was the whole reason UFC was invented, by the way. Yeah, and that's why those first UFCs are awesome. Yeah. You get to see these 250 and no bare-knuckle kickboxer guy strong, you know, go in there with real, quote-unquote, real fighting experience against a way smaller grappler, jiu-jitsu guy and lose.

In fact, this is to go one step further if you watch UFC 2, Pat Smith, who's, he was one of my favorite guys, by the way, when I was watching. He was a kickboxer, who's badass guy, 210, solid, wrecking guys, makes it to the finals against Hoyst Gracie. and Hoyst Gracie didn't tap him out or he tapped him out but now with a submission hold he tapped him due to strikes so a grappler guy pounded out like you know a striker guy no submissions

it was all punches it was nowadays no one would ever tap to that now but I'm just saying yeah only because they know if you don't know you just think you're dead yeah yeah one guy like I said before one guy tapped because he was claustrophobic he just got mounted but nonetheless

yeah It's hard to really reconcile really what this question. I don't know if it's implying anything. Well, it's definitely implying that this guy that I was going against was like holding back. Right. And that might hold a different tail if you were. But I've been against countless, literally countless of guys have sparred against me trying to knock me out, whether they're traditional martial artists, whether they're just countless guys. Yeah.

And it's hard to knock somebody out. Yeah. I don't know who that's a question. Of course, I'm not going to, you know, hate on the question or nothing like that. But speaking from experience, this sounds like the exact question that inexperienced people have. You know, people who are going to... No, this is coming most likely from somebody that's been heavily involved in traditional martial arts and has been told that, hey, don't worry about somebody trying to take you down.

Because if you just hit them here and here, they'll fall and you'll win. That's exactly what I'm talking about. That's not good. That's sort of why I put this in here, you know, just to make sure that they realize that, you shouldn't, you should actually pay attention to what else is going on in the world instead of staying in like, hey, just this one little traditional martial art. And it's the same thing with,

if you're just doing jiu-jitsu. And I got this in here later. There's another question about this, but I mean, I don't tell people just train jiu-jitsu. I tell them train jiu-jitsu, train wrestling, train boxing, chain Muay. And you know what? When you get done with all that and you have a good base,

train Krav Maga, and then you, you know what, do realistic situation. By the way, you should learn how to shoot a gun. And by the way, you should be in good shape. do everything. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, agreed. One answer is not the answer.

Yeah. T-shirt. Every time we say something like that, like one answer is not the answer, which I must admit, sounds pretty cool. Sounds pretty dope, yeah. But we'll get,

everyone's going to say, put that on a T-shirt, and then I have to refer to Echo and see if he's going to put it on a T-shirt. We'll see how that works out. All right, next question. Is it better to reveal too much information or too little information, both in personal life and leadership? Okay, so there's two sides to this, not just the personal and the business side, but in the business side, there's two pieces, really.

There's operational and planning, right? So if you've got something that you're planning for, whether you're in a company and you're trying to plan a new strategy for the next quarter, the next year, or the next company that you're going to, open or the new code, whatever you're going to do. There's that, and you're planning that. Then I want to, and in the military, if you're planning an operation, you're putting together a mission that you're going to go do in both those situations, I give everyone all the information that I have, absolutely. I don't, I let them know everything that I know so that they can weigh everything as

much as I weigh. In fact, I want them to toil with the information more than I do so that I can kind of get a fresher look at it when I come in. And I think I do and I did see people that would hold back information in those situations Leaders that would hold back information. Why would they do that? Because they're insecure. Because knowledge gives you power.

And you use that knowledge to say you come in and Echo's got a good plan put together. And I go, yeah, but you got to think about this right here. And you just say, well, I didn't know that. But it gives me a little bit of leverage. It gives me a little bit of power. That's ridiculous. So when it comes to planning and operations and conducting business and planning missions, man, share all the information you've got in your organization, out of your organization.

So everybody has the knowledge. That's answer number one. Then we get to the information regarding the leadership of humans. And of course, you hear words like transparency and we got to be honest and you hear those things getting thrown around. And of course, no one's going to argue with them, right? No one's going to argue and say, hey, you shouldn't be honest. No one's going to say you shouldn't be transparent, right?

But the fact of the matter is you cannot always share all the information all the time when it comes to leading people. You can't do it. And here's the problem of why you can't do it because people can't always handle the truth. And when you give them the truth, they might have a bunch of different reactions, right? some of those reactions being anger and defensiveness. So in other words, if I tell someone, A, I'm putting this other person in charge because I don't think you're smart enough

to figure out the solution. That's my true statement. I'm going to be honest with you. I don't think you're smart. What does that do? How does that affect the mission? Does it move us closer to the goal? Is that person now going to be really supportive of me

and work hard knowing that I think they're stupid? The answer is, of course, not. I mean, another example is what if you think that your boss's plan is terrible? So you go in there and say, hey, your boss is terrible. Your plan that you came up with is awful. Now, there might be some bosses that are secure in their leadership and they're secure with and they go, oh, man, why do you think that? Here, break it down for me.

That's cool. But a lot of bosses are going to be insulted by that. A lot of bosses, you're going to hurt their ego. And instead of listening to the idea that you have, instead, they're going to be angered by it. They're going to turn it off. They're going to turn off their minds. They're going to be mad at you.

They're not going to listen to you anymore because the way you came across. So you would have been better off not being quote unquote honest and not sharing all the information. You would have been better off slowly trying to take the plan that he came up with and maybe maneuver on it. Or maybe say, hey, boss, I don't know if that's going to work because of this thing over here. But you be tactful. And there's a million examples we could talk of like that. And so when it comes to leading people, not operations, not planning missions, but when it comes to leading people, you need to think.

Think about what you're saying. Thinking about how it's going to impact the team. Think about how it's going to impact the relationships up and down the chain of command. Think about how it's going to impact the mission. Because if you're a good leader, anywhere on that chain of command, if you're a good leader, the most important thing to you should be achieving the mission. So if your honesty is actually creating adversarial relationships inside your team, what good are you doing moving the mission forward?

The answer is you're not. So I'm not telling you to be dishonest, but I'm telling you to think. And it's the same thing in your personal life. You've got to think about what you're saying. You've got to think about your wife's perspective or your husband. perspective or your kids perspective or your friends perspective how is what I'm about to say going to affect them long term you got to be measured now you might give them a little hint of something and then see how they react and maybe you could be a little bit more honest with

them maybe you could throw some bait out there and see if they bite on it but you just don't want to jump in or throw it out to where now you've created an adversarial relationship with your friend, with your spouse, with your kid, because now they're not listening to it. It's even with your kids. Oh, you've got to be totally honest with your kids. Okay. You know what? Totally honestly, I don't think you're capable of being this level of an athlete.

Right? Do they need to hear that when they're nine years old? Probably not. So you just got to think. You got to think. And there's ways to get that information across in a tactical way, in an indirect way, so that it still manages to improve the person. Because I don't want to have Echo come up with you,

come up with a bunch of bad ideas. And all I do is say, oh, that's a good idea. That's a good idea. That's good. I didn't train you. I didn't improve you. I want to say, hey, you know what? That's not bad.

What if we did this? You know what I mean? and so we move in the right direction. We still have some mentorship going on, but it's indirect. We still have some coaching going on, but it's indirect, because I don't want to coach you, and you don't want to be coached by me. Even my son, when I, like, tell him something in jujitsu,

I've been doing jiu-jitsu for over 20 years with some of the best guys in the entire world, literally. And I'll say, hey, Thor, you need to scoot your hip a little bit more when you do that move. And they go, no, you don't. Don't. Really?

No, actually, you do it. Well, he'll listen to Jeff. He'll listen to Dean. Actually, I've heard him argue with both Jeff and Dean. Maybe it was their approach. Yeah, maybe they need to be a little more indirect with a young man. And that kind of illustrates one of the many challenges with that. You know, one of these simple but not easy things.

Because everyone's different. How you say, throw something out there to see how they respond. Everyone's going to respond different. That's the thing. So it is kind of this feeling out process that's, you know, I think that, and I mentioned this before, where, you know, some people, they'll be direct, but people don't really like them. And then they kind of double down on it and say, hey, you know, I speak the truth, you know, and like me for who I am or whatever. So what you do when you do that, when people do that, is they render themselves ineffective in situations. Now no one's leadership.

Yeah, exactly right. And guess what? No one's inviting you to their party. No one wants to be a friend. you know, you may or may not have gotten a divorce from it. And it's all because you, essentially, you just chose to be a dick. Look, we all understand that certain things are insulting if you're, quote, unquote, too honest, you know? Yeah.

Everyone except you, you know, if you look around and no one wants to be around you, that's a problem. Yeah. Newsflash. Yeah. You're a jerk. Yes. And people don't follow jerks. Yes. They really don't.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's not an honest. Honesty is never an excuse to be a jerk to people. Yeah. And don't mistake. You know, people have this kind of misconception

that speaking your mind is a good thing. It's not black and white. You're totally right. Don't be like, hey, I'm not going to speak my word. That's what's so crazy about this is like, um,

people, I think always have that feeling. I mean, I said it when I was talking, you know, people say, oh, of course honesty is,

you know, the best thing. You've got to be honest. And I would say that I am known as a person that is honest and a straight shooter. And that's great. But at the same time, like you just said, that doesn't mean I run around and insults people. It means I'm a tactician. You know what?

It's not honesty. It's being a tactician. Because this is something that can actually go too far as well. if if you're constantly always telling everyone thing every are all sugar-coded well now then no one respects your opinion either right you see what I'm saying if I just say oh echo you did a great job with that video you did a great job with that video too you did great well what if you were producing junk videos bad example I need to tell you yeah I know it's a rough example I would need to think of something that you didn't do such high quality

work point-taking no for sure but I've got to I've got to be honest with you and if all I do is tell you, hey, it's great, it's great, it's great, it's great, it's great. You know, that doesn't help us. What I need to say is, hey, man, that's an awesome video. It'd be cool if you captured this angle, too, right? Or do you think it'd be possible to get this message across also? And you'd say, oh, I can do anything? You see how I just played Jericho? You see how I did that? Yeah. Dang. Yeah, like, oh, do you think it's even possible to get this angle in there? And you'd be like, oh, yeah, I could make it come across strong. Dang, I didn't even know there was a fight. Yeah, you didn't know there was a fight. I just had a little victory of it.

in here. All right. Yeah, so it's not black and white, you know, or like it, like everything, it's a balance.

It's a balance. It's a dichotomy. Yes, the dichotomy between telling the truth and being tactful. Next question. Jocco,

how do you handle it when someone up the chain of command betrays trust? Like, what is this? Like lying, they lie to you or? This could be,

this is a huge, this is a huge spectrum of things. Yeah, so for number one, you just learned. right you just learn something about someone's character you now kind of know better what you're dealing with now if this is a major situation you might have to immediately confront it and or go above them in the chain of command i mean if there's lives at risk if there's something

morally wrong that is happening if there's something illegal that's happening that now you're going to get wrapped into and that's another decision you got to make if you're not going to be wrapped into it. Then it's a decision you got to make if you want to ruin this person's life, whatever. That's a different decision. That's not this question. We'd have to deal with that in a separate question. Are innocent people being hurt? So if it's something like that, lives at risk, you know, something morally wrong is happening, something illegal is happening, innocent people being hurt, then you're probably going to have to say something. You're going to have to say something. Now I will tell you this, before you say something, make sure all your

ducks in a row, make sure you have evidence. Don't go off half-cocked, be ready. Because people that are deceitful like this, they prepare. They are ready for battle to protect themselves, and they don't care what happens to other people. So you've got to watch out for that. Now, if it's something minor, you know, if it's something minor, then that's something that's something that you log down in the brain.

Right? Something that you log down in the brain. And, but it allows you to see a person's character. And that means, again, it's a minor infraction, but it also means you've got to watch yourself and you got to watch them a little bit more closely. You've got to be careful because people like that, they think they're smarter than everyone else. They think that they're getting away with lies. So they think they're smarter. And there's like a little hint of sociopath in there that they can get away with these.

lies and so you've got to watch them you got to watch them carefully and in in like I said it kind of goes back to that previous question because you don't want to be a person that comes across as dishonest yourself and if people don't think they can trust what you're saying they're not going to trust you with other things so if you know I'm not giving you good feedback because I'm too nice you're not going to you're not going to respect my opinion anymore. So, you know, when you're dealing with someone, if someone comes to you and said, again,

this is honesty versus dishonesty. If you come to me and say, hey, what do you think of this plan? I'm not going to say, hey, I think that's a stupid plan. I might say,

I don't know if that's how I do it. I might try this approach, right? You're just going to be diplomatic. If you, if I'm not going to say to you, I don't think you're smart enough to figure this out. I'm going to move you to a different division. because I don't think you're smart enough to solve this problem.

I'm not going to say that. I'm going to say, you know what? I need you on this other project over here that I think you're going to be really knock this thing out of the park. Now you're going to know deep inside. But it's called tact. And that's what you have to use. But back to the honesty or when a person betrays your trust,

you've learned about their character. If it's a big thing, you're going to have to talk about it. You're going to have to tell somebody. Yeah. If it's a little thing, you've got to watch. Kivive, I think we just learned that vocabulary tonight. Who's there? Watch. Yeah.

You know how you see, and you log it in your brain, right? Logging in your brain that, okay, they lied about that. Or, oh, all right, you know. And I think you should constantly do that, right? And I think we all do that anyway. That's really our thing. That's the way. And your brain has certain ways, just the way it's wired, like,

like first impressions, right? That's usually a big thing. But really what's really going on, isn't that the first impression is this has more weight specifically than, you know, other impressions that you get along the line? It's because let's say I don't, let's say I don't know that much about you. I don't know, really, this is the first time I ever met you, heard about you, whatever. Your first impression, it's not that it's so heavy. It's just, it's the only impression. So it seems like everything. If you're a dick to me, okay, you're a dick. In my mind, you're just a dick. Second day, you're not a dick.

You're 50% dick, which is, that's still a dick. Even if you're 20% dick, you're like, okay, I like them, but he's still a dick. So, again, my point is you're always logging stuff in your brain. What is this person? What is this person? Not when it comes to someone who betrayed your trust, this doesn't really count them out as far as trusting them. Because a lot of times the more time you spend with them, the more experience you have

with them, you start to get a picture of, okay, He'll betray my trust in this case, in this type of situation. It's like if you have a friend who he would literally risk his life to save your life, but at the same time, he would probably hook up with your wife if he had the opportunity. You know, so there's different kind of things. So as you gain experience with people. He is therefore risking his own life in that situation. Right, sure, of course.

But you start to get a picture of who the person is. And I don't have any friends like that. Thankfully, yeah. But I do know what you're saying Yeah People that have different moral compass and moral values And so you're judging them based on that Right yeah so just be careful not to judge them based on that

So again ultimately You are judging them based on that Yes yes fully but that's part of like this big picture So because ultimately you want to get to the point And I've had this experience specifically In my life before where Anyway you want to get to the point where You trust them

Yeah I trust them to be that person You know I know he's not trust in this, but he's just with this. So I, yeah, his role in my life or in this company or whatever, I know. I trust him to be him. Therefore, I won't give him this task. You trust them to be them. Yes, exactly right. Trust the scorpion to be the scorpion, trust the frog to be the frog. Yes. And that comes with like the experience. So if someone, you know, if it's like you said, if it's a minor thing, don't go jump down his throat or just jump to this thing. Really just be like, okay, you know, deal with it in your way. But like I said, log it in your brain and move forward. What, you know,

and keep your eyes open to things that you can trust them about. Yeah. So you get that full picture. And I hate to say this and I've said it before. I don't have these massively high expectations of other human beings. Yeah. I hate to say it. But I'm kind of anticipating that they're telling me half-truths.

Yeah. And yeah. Yeah. So don't get these high expectations and expect that people are going to try and get one over on you. Yeah. And then when you do get your core of people that you know are really truly trustworthy, that's awesome. Yeah. That might be three people in your life.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I would say that that's fair. You know, I think a lot of people are like that. And I think everyone's like that in one way or another, you know, and it's a spectrum. But I've been in a situation where someone say, hey, do you know this guy? It'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know him. And they'll be like, yeah, are you friends with that guy?

Like, isn't he hard to trust because of like this? And I'll say, I don't find him hard to trust. I trust him to be him. just exactly how you're saying you trust the scorpion to be a scorpion yeah you know a scorpion can be relied upon for specific things and straight up can't be relied upon for certain other things so again if you just keep your eyes open and you know don't start burning bridges with the person if it's this small thing as as time goes on you can start to get a feel of really who this person is in the entirety and it might be beneficial in the in the situation you're in with them know your people

I agree Next question Here's a strange one I have ongoing regret For never joining the military Or police department And I'm not yet strong enough To consider changing careers now

For financial reasons I also don't know how to discuss this with my wife As we want to make some additions To the family soon I feel unfulfilled in this single aspect of my life It's a strange feeling considering I have skyrocketed up the chain in my company so quickly. So many would do anything to be where I find myself.

How do you overcome your face, or how do you overcome or face yourself knowing you're holding back from a certain calling? Because I really do see it as a calling in some form. I'm interested to hear from you. I think this is pretty easy. Go join the reserves. Go join the reserves. go in the army reserves, go in the, like every branch has some reserves where you're going to do one week and a month.

You have to do boot camp. That'll be whatever it's going to be 10 weeks, 12 weeks, 14 weeks, depending on which branch you go into. And then you do one weekend a month and you do two weeks in the summer. You'll understand what the military is about. There's actually a chance. Well, first of all, there's a chance to be deployed. I mean, when we were in Iraq, you know, when we deployed to Ramadi, my second deployment to Iraq, the unit that was there, the 228 iron soldiers.

They were a reserve unit out of Pennsylvania. They were awesome. They'd been there for 14 months. They lost a lot of guys and they fought hard. So it's not like this reservist thing is a different class of soldier. They're soldiers, for real. They're Marines, for real. And you may be going on deployment.

But what's cool about it is most companies, they will excuse you, basically, when you go in the reserves. They'll excuse you when you have time. In fact, I think it's, I was never in the reserves. But I think you're actually protected by the federal government from being fired because you're serving in the reserves. So I would definitely go and look into the reserves because otherwise that feeling that you have, I can only imagine it's never going to go away. I don't know because I had that feeling that I wanted to join the military when I was four years old and I did it as soon as I turned 18. So I don't, you know, I, you know what I regret now is like I want to still be in, you know? So especially now with the fighting picking up overseas,

it's, you know, that's the only thing that I feel is, damn, I want to go back. But if you never did it at all, that's a grinding feeling. So go,

talk to a recruiter, get in the reserves. And you know what else? In certain areas, there's definitely volunteer fire departments. You can volunteer as a fireman. And you can volunteer as a policeman. They have certain,

I don't have no idea what state you're from asking this question, but there's deputies. you can get deputized. You can go through a... In San Diego, they definitely have reserve cops where you have to go to the police academy and you become a reserve cop.

So, and with all that, you want to talk about it with your wife? Talk about it with your wife. You know, you say you don't know how to? This is in a situation where you can be totally honest with her. Hey, I always wanted to join the military. I haven't done it.

I feel like it's something I really want to do. Here's the options I want to go look at. What do you think? now you're married to a girl and you're going to have kids it's your military service will be harder on her than it is on you so she better be strong she better be tough and you know the military wives out there i mean my wife when i was gone on deployment after deployment it's it's not easy i mean luckily she's tough and she raised kids without me and she took care of household without me And she went to the hospital to visit my wounded guys. And she went to the funerals of my guys were getting killed. And she had to do that while I was gone on deployment.

And she was hearing from me once a week, maybe. So you're going to put your family through a lot of stress. Now, you might stress your family a lot by always having regret that they held you back. That's selfish, but that's true. So I would just go look into it, see what the options are, talk about. it with your wife. There are some really good benefits to it. And also, the final point is sometimes when you're reservist, you can decide that you want to go active duty. Maybe you love it. Maybe you say, yeah, this was my calling. Maybe your fourth day in boot camp where you haven't slept, you had your

head shaved, you're tired, you're hungry, the food is horrible, and you say, man, this is what I've always wanted to do with my life. And if that happens, there's options where you can now go active duty. And you can see how your wife dealt with it while you were gone. And if she dealt with it well, that's great. Hey, let's make a career out of this. And that's a good option to do. So there's some, I think you're, this is, this is, this is, this is a easy day, easy, easy problem to take care of. No factor. Next question. Jocco, what's your take on sport jiu-jitsu versus self-defense jiu-jitsu? And can sport, sport jiu-jitsu, can it translate onto the street? most schools are geared towards sport.

Yeah, so for anyone that's listening that doesn't do Jiu-Jitsu, both of you that are out there that don't do Jiu-Jitsu that are listening. First of all, do Jiu-Jitsu. Second of all, so there's, there's, Jiu-Jitsu is rooted really in self-defense. And like anything that gets put into a, a closed environment, it starts to breed and become different and mutate.

And so, Jiu Jitsu in a way, what they now call sport Jiu Jitsu, is Jiu Jitsu that has been in this competition environment, in the Jiu Jitsu Sport Competition environment. So Jiu Jitsu is a sport as well as self-defense. It's a sport with points and you can win on points and they have championships and it's very competitive.

And it's pretty entertaining to watch if you know and understand the game. but since it's in this environment, this closed environment, it starts to mutate. And that's what's happened. So, for instance, there's maneuvers that you do in sport jiu-jitsu that are so intricate and they're so reliant on, for instance, reliant on the ghee, the jiu-jitsu uniform, which is a heavy fabric ghi. and you can actually use parts of the ghee to choke people. And you can use parts of the ghee to make a person off balance called a sweep and get on top.

You can literally take the lapel of their ghee and put it between their legs and wrap it around your leg and then grab the ghee there. And it's going to, and then you just swing your hips and it's going to pull them off balance. Now this is something you could literally never do in the street. So that's what they're talking about when they're talking about sport versus. versus self-defense. And they have this with other things. I mean, there's sport shooting where they do certain, and it's semi-realistic, just like Jiu-Jitsu is semi-realistic.

When you go in a tournament, it somewhat simulates a street fight, just like some shooting competitions somewhat simulate combat, but they're not exact. And so the question is, does the sport translate onto the street? and my answer to that is, first of all, yes, it does. Not every move, certainly, and there's absolutely moves that you would do in Jiu-Jitsu in a tournament that you would never do on the street. Now, luckily, anybody who's good enough to do those advanced moves in a tournament

is good enough that in the street, they're not going to need those moves. You're not going to need to do a reverse Oma Plata in the street. You're not going to need to do donkey guard in the street. Barambolo. Right. You're not going to need to do Barambolo in the street. You're just not going to need to do it. If you're fighting someone that's good, well, then guess what?

I guess you did need it. But you're not going to come up against a person in the street that's going to have a counter to your barombollo attack. And you don't have a ghee on, so that's not going to work. I mean, there are some no-gi versions that. The bottom line is, if you're doing Jiu-Jitsu, you're definitely going to do very, very well in a street. fight. Now, that being said, that being said, sometimes you know what you got to do? You got to train jujitsu for the street. You got to punch each other. Occasionally, you got to say, hey, you know what? Let's go live a little bit and we'll do some, maybe you put gloves on, maybe you put MMA gloves on,

maybe just use open hands and you smack each other. And you realize like, oh, when I'm on the bottom in the half guard, where I feel super comfortable when I'm doing jiu-jitsu, if I'm in a real fight, I'm going to be getting head-butted or I'm going to be getting punched in the face. And that's not good. So what do I do to get out of this? You know, the guard can be horrible on the bottom. And you don't want to be on the bottom anyways in the fight. You don't want to, the bottom line is you don't want to grapple if you don't have to.

You don't want to be in a street fight in the first place. The reason you're in a street fight is because you could not avoid it. That's why you're in a street fight. You could not avoid it. You got attacked. you got taken down to the ground. Because even if someone swings at you and you can still get away from them, they haven't grabbed you yet.

Run away. Cool. So train Jiu-Jitsu with punches, also train boxing, mootai, and wrestling. And also work on some real scenarios. Work on the headlock. And I've seen this where you get a guy that's really just come into the game and jump straight. You know, these young kids, they come into the game.

The first thing they want to learn is the rubber. regard. The first thing they want to learn is the Yomopold. The first thing they want to learn is a barombole. That's like the first thing they want to learn. And literally, someone will put them in a headlock and they won't know what to do. Because it's different. Just like, just like a baronbole requires a technique, the headlock escape requires some technique to get out of that. So work on that, work on the bear hug, work on the, the arm grab and the wrist grab and the the straight arm choke and big looping punches that you're going to see. And I'll tell you, sometimes Dean will teach a self-defense class.

And when Dean teaches a self-defense class, every time he teaches one, I learn something. I'm like, man, that's a good little technique he just showed, how to get out of this, how to get out of that. So, bottom line, yes, you can, sport jiu-jitsu, for the most part, translates into the street. and if you're good enough at sports Jiu-Jitsu that you're competing at a high level, even Purple Belt and up, you're not going to need to use any sports Jiu-Jitsu moves in the street. You're going to be destroying someone in a street fight

if you end up in that situation. Yeah, it's a spec, especially now just like how are you saying, the Jiu-Jitsu has evolved and kind of mutated and morphed in the gyms now. Yeah, a petri dish. Jiu-Jitsu is like in a petri dish. It's growing. It just grows on its own. It turns in this weird fungus

and it gets all different looking. And it does look different. It does look different than it did. You know, even... Like I remember, Dean and I were talking about the other day, we remember when the OMA Plata came out. You know, I think it was, you know, like 1996. We started seeing the Oma Plata and we were, oh, man.

And it looks very fancy. Yeah, yeah. It looks very... It's a fancy looking move. Yeah. And now, now, because the internet, because so many people are... It's exploding how rhaps.

rapidly it's changing and mutating it's mutating it's mutating faster now than it ever has yeah yeah and that's it's part of the beauty of it i think in you know in most ways um the it's a spectrum though right if you went from one side which is just the basic the original basic you know take down mount side mount guard all this all the way to worm guard something that that or berumbola for example where so sport jiu jitsu if you want to narrow it down it's it's it's if it's something where the moves or whatever you're doing is dependent on the sport elements of it. So it's dependent that you have a mat. It's dependent that you have a ghee and a belt.

So if you do warm guard, that's highly dependent on the guy having a ghee with a lapel out. And eventually someone's going to figure out how to do wormguard without it. They'll figure out some variation. For sure. They may have already. Yeah. I'm sure Keenan's working on it. A pioneer.

So it's like, you know, just to kind of put it into deep. fine terms. So self-defense, I think now is you may find a gym that only does sport, where if you came in no experience and then three, four, or five years later, your sport jiu-jitsu might not take you very far in the street. It'd be rare, I think, but you could probably find a school like that. I don't know where they are. But I think, just like how you're saying, when you make it to Purple Belt, you're the basic jiu-jitsu will win on the street.

And really, if you go to a school, like even the original Gracie Academy in Torrance, if you go there, the self-defense pursuit in jiu-jitsu is more of it is its tactic based, like mentally. It's not specific moves. It's distance management. It's where your mindset is.

In the guard, your pursuit, your goal in the guard is way different than in a, in a tournament or something. They won't, they'll say, don't even go for submissions right here. It's not your job to do submissions right here. I was going to say that. You said it's dependent on the ghee. It's sport judicious is dependent on the ghee, depending on the mat.

It's also dependent on the rules and it's depending on an opponent that knows jiu-jitsu often. It's dependent on somebody that knows what they're doing because they're going to counter what you're doing in order to make something work. Absolutely right. Yeah. So if you go back to the self-defense, you're going to be learning basically how to protect yourself given what jiu-jitsu is. That's it. In sport, you're going to be learning how to score

points, how to control a certain guy with this specific uniform, how to utilize that uniform, how to utilize the mat. And that's another thing that's messed up. Like in the IBJF, so the official rules of jiu-jitsu, there's some things that you're not allowed to do. Right. And that's not good. They should allow these things. Right. In regards to pursuing self-defense. Yes. The sport, A sport is a sport, really, when it comes down to it. Well, yeah, I guess you can put whatever rules you want on it. But you shouldn't. Yeah, yeah.

If you don't mind the deviation from self-defense, if you don't mind that, then put whatever rules you want. But yeah, I would say you shouldn't if you care about. The more rules you put in the sport of Jitsu, the less effective it becomes, unfortunately. So they need to stop with the rules. Yeah. And it's the same thing with judo. It's the same thing with wrestling. I mean, wrestling in America, if they're not.

they allowed submission holds in wrestling in America, you know, America would be insane with fighters. We've done pretty good, but can you imagine if every high school kid that wrestled knew how to do all submissions? He'd be nuts. That's the way it should be. I wish it was that way. I wish the world was that way.

It would be a better place. But what they did is, what they did is with wrestling, they took, they took submission holds out because they considered them to be dangerous. Yeah. In judo is a classic example where they remove the double leg. Like you can't do a straight double leg in a tournament anymore. You have to set it up. It has to be off of something else because wrestlers were coming in and dominating in judo tournaments.

It's just hitting double legs because they're awesome at them. And it's the same thing now you see with Jiu-Jitsu and IBJJF. They're, you know, with the no heel hooks. Even at a black belt level, you're not allowed to do heel hooks. That completely changes some parts of the games. And it doesn't change them where it's going to make you lose in a street fight, but it definitely puts a stop to the growth of the sport in terms of technique. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. So exactly what you're saying now, the sport, the rules and stuff, all that does is narrow down the sport part of it. And the more people who pursue it for sport, not just sport, but sport, if pursuing Jiu Jitsu for sport is part of your game, it's part of your goals or whatever. and then now the sport has become this limited thing where you can't like this 20% of moves you can't do you're going to spend way less time practicing them you'd be way less effective at these moves that are a part of grappling a huge part of grappling ultimately so so yeah you're still going to have that huge overlap for sure if you know mount which is probably the first thing you go to your

first jujitsu class you're going to learn mount which is theoretically the most dominant position you can have. So you're going to learn mount, take what to do when the guy flips you over, what to do in the guard, how to function, you know, these things, that's what's going to get you by in the street. That's what's going to make you effective in an actual fight. Yeah. And then, you know, like anything, all these offshoots that grow,

you know, there's some overlap for sure. But if you go in a tournament, that's a specific pursuit. If you want to defend yourself, that's a specific pursuit now. And as time goes on, they're going to start to draw out that spectrum. There's a lot of overlap right now. Yes. And in the future, there'll be less. Yeah.

Because the way that they're putting rules over the sport. Yeah. And just the sport in general. Yeah, and the sport mutating. Yeah. So, you know, the sport, depending on the, depending on the fact that there's a mat. Like, if you try to do a barombole in the street with chaos on the road or something, it's like, you make it jammed up. The way that you spin on the mat.

Yeah. There's too much friction on the street. It would be difficult. That would make it hard. Yeah. Even the grass would make it hard. Yeah. I haven't tried a barrambole on the street.

I'll go get a fight, pick a fight. Yeah, but both are good. I think it's fun. You can't help but really like, because when you go in Jiu-Jitsu, you're like, okay, this is basically a fight. And we can train full speed and be safe. It's a fight. That's what makes it so fun because when you win, the payoff is so good on the inside. And when you lose, it's like you still get that detriment that still, you still have that feeling.

But at the end of the day, you know you lived. you're not enemies with the guy, you're not injured, nothing like that. So it makes it this win-win the whole time, right? And when you see a cool move, like, wormguard, when, like, you're controlling one guy with your weird foot face this way in one hand and the guy can't, like, even stand up. Yeah. That's so fun.

You know, it's like, oh, I have the superpower. I'm wielding, you know, in the mess. So you can't help but pursue those fun. Think Barambolo, it's like you're a breakdancer doing some cool stuff. Meanwhile, you're dominating the guy while you're doing it. You can't help but do that stuff. It's so fun, you know? Yeah.

I mean, I don't think you can really hate on the sport. No, I don't. I don't hate on the sport. Did you get the impression? No, no, no, no. I'm saying, but some people do. You know how even just the question, not that the person who asked this question thinks this,

but it implies that there is a little bit of a climate of this versus this. If you don't like the barombole, learn to defend against it. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? If you don't like rubber guard, cool, learn to defend against it. Yep. That's my opinion. Because if it's working, then credit.

Yeah. you either effective or ineffective. My brother Lafaybittance said that one. All right. Yeah, let's do one more. One more. Okay. Jocko, a lot of your advice applies to leading yourself,

not just leading others. Self-help, quote-unquote, is a loaded word. So let's say self-management. What is the one change reader should make today to start improving themselves in their situation.

I don't really like those words. Self-help or self-management or self-improvement. I don't really like what those words have come to mean these days. Because there's a lot of people out there that are constantly trying to improve themselves by looking for the one change. The one change, right? The one change in their life that's going to make their dreams. come true. And even worse, on top of that, there's a lot of people out there, a lot of self-help

gurus and these hyperactive motivational speakers and these other self-appointed modern Zen yoga warriors that they're trying to sell the one thing. They're trying to sell the nine steps or the enlightened path that's going to allow you to unlock all of your human potential and fulfill the dreams so you can live the life that you've you've always wanted to live now i'm no guru and i definitely don't claim to be i'm just a man but i will tell you this it isn't one thing and it isn't ten things and it isn't a hundred things it isn't a quick path and there are no shortcuts meditation won't get you there and neither will a miracle drug or an organic supplement or some superfood getting better isn't a hack or a trick or a one change that you need to make

getting better is a campaign it's a campaign it's a daily a weekly it's an hourly fight an incessant fight that doesn't stop against weakness and a against temptation and against laziness. It's a campaign of discipline. It's a campaign of hard work and dedication. It's waking up early and going to bed late and grinding out every second in between. Every single day. So you want to get better?

You want to self-improve? Stop looking for a shortcut and go find your alarm clock. Find your discipline. and find your guts and your passion and your drive and find you will. And then, and then you will find your freedom. And I think that's all I've got for tonight. So all you troopers out there out on the front lines fighting against evil

or fighting against crime or fighting against fires. or fighting to make things happen, fighting to get ahead and make something out of this little bit of time that we've got. Thanks for joining us in the fight. And if you want to keep the conversation going, you can find us on the inner webs. I'm at Jocko Willink and Echo is at Echo Charles. And if you want to support the podcast, Echo's going to tell you how.

just a few ways easiest way my opinion before you do your Amazon shopping when you shop on Amazon.com go to jacopodcast.com and then we have an Amazon link there you click on there and then you do shopping whether you buy a book or whatever

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And you can get it on digital, hardcover. You can get it on audio, which is actually read by Laif Babin and myself. And when you get done, supporting the podcast and supporting the cause, and supporting the cause, here go out there and do something to support yourself to make yourself better get out there into the world and get after it and so until next time this is jocco and echo out